


make you better

by tsunderestorm



Category: Code Geass
Genre: M/M, Movie: Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection, Spoilers for Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 14:44:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20259787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: A late-night conversation after the events of Re;surrection.





	make you better

**Author's Note:**

> _‘cause we’re not so starry-eyed anymore_

Lelouch presses his head between Suzaku’s shoulders and considers the concept of rebirth. He thinks about Suzaku’s namesake: the phoenix, in whose immolation he supposes there is some sort of inspiration: the kind of pitiful poetry that privileged people love to spout to the suffering. They say what doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger, but what happens when it does kill you? Does it make you stronger, still? 

He thinks of resurrection, of the biblical messiah rolling back the stone to rise on the third day and rising to divinity. He called himself a savior once, and the memory of the word leaves a lump in his throat, one he has to swallow past the code mark emblazoned on his neck. He is not a messiah, or a monster, or a god, or even a ghost. He doesn’t feel strong. Unburdened by impending doom, by disaster in the event of inaction, he feels lonely; cold despite the warmth of the night. 

He traces the stories hidden in the moles on Suzaku’s back, connecting the dots like constellations and reading between the lines. His first and last friend’s skin tells the story of him in every imperfection: companion pieces to the puffy scar on Lelouch’s own chest that even immortality can’t erase, binding them together for eternity as much as the codes that connect when he pulls C.C. into his arms. What life has he led himself towards? What life has he dragged Suzaku into? The gravity had never escaped him - he’s always been uniquely burdened with the compulsion to consider any and all outcomes - but now the weight of it seems leaden. Concrete blocks dragging him down to the ocean floor as his lungs fill with seawater, the world on Atlas’ shoulders.

“Lelouch,” Suzaku whispers, his sleepy voice raspy against the silky stillness of the night. “Stop thinking so hard.” 

Lelouch scoffs, indignant. “Don’t you scold me when you’re barely half awake, Suzaku!”

“I can feel your face all scrunched up against my back...” Suzaku reasons with a laugh, reaching for Lelouch’s hand and covering it with his own against his chest. “Just sleep, Lu.”

What point is there to sleep, when the days and nights stretch out in the shape of infinity? Lelouch doesn’t want to sleep, but Suzaku has always been that way: quick to pacify, a counter to Lelouch’s bold-faced confrontation. He stares over his lover’s shoulder out of the window at the expanse of stars laid out in the deep blue sky, sighing heavily and demanding “Why do you want to sleep? Don’t you have questions? You didn’t bother to ask too many when you saw me again. Dammit Suzaku, why?”

“Sleep,” Suzaku repeats, rolling over so it’s his arms around Lelouch’s too-thin frame instead of Lelouch’s weak arms around him. “Because right now, we’re not Zero and L.L., or whatever you told me to call you… we’re just Suzaku and Lelouch. Because I know you’re going to leave as soon as the dust settles, and it’s been a year since I slept next to someone like this.”

Suzaku kisses Lelouch’s forehead with more tenderness than he deserves and Lelouch wonders, briefly, if his friend turned executioner kissed his cold, clammy forehead when all the blood had spilled from his body. “And when I lay next to you, it’s really easy to forget about everything you did, and about everything I did… with or without your orders when you were my emperor. I don’t deserve it, but like this I get to just think about you. And how we used to lay on the roof of that storehouse on top of some ratty blankets and count the constellations after Nunnally went to sleep, and about how your eyes were prettier than the color of the sky and I liked them better because I saw the whole world in them. Because the sky wasn’t falling yet, then, and it isn’t now and even if you and I are going to have a _serious_ talk tomorrow, tonight is-”

“Ours.” Lelouch finishes, interrupting Suzaku’s impassioned speech. The corners of his eyes are burning and he can see a few fat tears glinting on Suzaku’s cheeks in the slant of moonlight peeking through the window. He understands, now - it isn’t a refusal to face the harsh light of the truth, it’s… love. It’s still love, and it’s always been love. Only love inspires the kind of hate they’ve both felt burn in their chests, and although he’s long-since moved on from how much Suzaku had stood in opposition to him, he’d never expected the same from him despite what he said in the days that the Requiem hung over their head. 

“The world will always be ours. Ours and Nunnally’s.”

Suzaku’s eyes close, and he exhales a breath that lifts strands of Lelouch’s hair grown too long for his liking and tickles his face. “That’s right. So shut up and sleep, Lelouch.”


End file.
